Wednesday, May 20, 2009

This car in front of me had a bumper sticker on it that read: I'll keep my guns, liberty, and money, you can keep the change. I have only one response to that: Burn in Hell. Seriously, why are people always trying to "educate" me with their damn cars? Leave me alone. I'm just trying to get to work. I don't want to contemplate deep political shit this early in the morning. You know what else I don't want? To get to know you. I don't care where you go on vacation, I don't care where you went to college. I care even less about where your kids go to college. I don't want to know that you think I shouldn't have full control over my own body (pro-lifers) or that Jesus Loves Me. Guess what? Jesus hates me. He really, really does. And your saying that he loves me just twists the knife that much more, it is just rubbing salt into my gaping emotional wounds. Also? It's really sad that your kid has autism and all and that you're a cancer survivor and that you listen to Dave Mathews Band. But I have my own fucking problems. I don't want to hear about yours when I'm driving in my car. That's what therapists are for. I'm not your therapist. I'm not your friend. I have enough friends already. So in a nutshell, stop trying to advocate, educate, pontificate, and all the other 'cates from the bumper of your fucking car.

God, what the fuck is wrong with me? I know I'm over-reacting to that image that I saw with my eyes this morning. But I'm just overwhelmed with emotion as it is. And bumper stickers right now are just the tipping point, you know?

34 comments:

Yeah, I can't figure out when, exactly, the automobile became a rolling chalkboard. Ridiculous. Funny thing is, most of these Stickerites, when confronted, would most certainly tell you 'Hey, man, it's just a bumper sticker'. To which I say,

'Hey, fuckface, don't put anything on your car that you wouldn't say directly to me, in an unapologetic and fearless manner.'

on the back - "question authority" "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent" - e. rooseveltand also a sticker from my former band, the transfers...and one of an organization i belong to called Art Army.

OH - and i have a sticker of a fairy right in the middle of my back window.

i think of black betty (car) like an article of clothing... just another form of expression, suppose.

hehe.

you'd probably want to flick me off if i was driving next to you! i usually have my windows down and the music pumping ( i have EXCELLENT taste in music, btw) and i'm groovin' while i'm coasting along.

My general rule of thumb, if the sticker is worth more than the car, it can go on the car. I actually think it looks a bit trashy and lowbrow. But, hey that's me.

I am in total agreement with you about the drive-by proseletyzing though. I am constantly annoyed by the announcement of a person's attitude or beliefs all over their car. It is preachy and presumptuous, when done wrong. (The examples above wouldn't annoy me so much.)

In fact, I have a note about a post idea that I long ago abandoned because I couldn't find a way to have it come across as anything other than globally Christian hostile (which I am not), but it was in response to a bumper sticker that said "Jesus died for me and you" but was accompanied by American flags and guns and stuff. I think there may have been something that implied something about the current middle east conflict too, but my memory on that is hazy now. My note simply says: "Jesus died for me and you. Now go kill some Muslims and atheists and abortionists for him. It's only fair."

I would probably be interested in getting a darwinfish for my car, but I don't want to invoke this angry reaction in anyone else, so I abstain. The Happy Humanist is a lot less polarizing and less well known and isn't a direct manipulation of a Christian symbol, so that may be more my style.

Magpie - yeah, those fish are way irritating. But I also dislike the darwin fish ones too. It's like Pos said: Taking a religious symbol and changing it has a blasphemous, cruel feel to it for me. I don't know if that makes sense. I feel bad for fundie Christians. I WAS a fundie Christian back in the day. Thanks for never putting a bumper sticker on your car. I really appreciate that.

Shannon - You're a sweet girl Shannon. We can agree to disagree on the bumper sticker thing. It's certainly your right to do it. But I stand firm on not liking them.

Lisa - yeah I wrote a blog a while back about my hatred for all the shit that people put on their cars. the memoriams, the fake baseballs shattering the window, the baby on board signs. all of it is so desperate.

Pos - Go with The Happy Humanist if you must go with anything. I agree that the Darwin Fish is an anti-Christian symbol. If we are ever going to change these people's minds (and that's a big IF) we certainly have to stop attacking them. Even though it's quite tempting to do so.

Ruth - I'm going to have to say all of them annoy me in one way or another. I'm less irritated by innocuous ones than I am by the intolerant, right wing bullshit ones. There is a hate scale at play.

I like bumper stickers, but only the ones that make fun of other people's bumper stickers. For instance, I have a bumper sticker. It says, "My kid can ollie over your honor student." I love it. (An ollie is a skateboarding move).

Although, I must confess that my daughter and I are considering getting a bunch of small stickers printed up that say, "Because I have a very tiny penis." We decided on this after seeing all the hummers in our area, and also, a ton of "I'm in favor of Proposition 2" (against gay marriage) in our area.

We'd like to take them around, and as a secret act of sabotage, paste them on people's cars whose stickers piss us off.

people don´t have bumper stickers like we do at home. They aren´t all hung up on "my individuality" and "my expression of who I am on my fucking car based on a sticker that was mass produced that I bought at a bookstore".

I do get amusement out of it when I go home though. It instantly lets me judge drivers more than just based on their driving skills.